Latino Daily News

Pope Francis Trending: Most Talked About on Facebook and Time’s Person of the Year Finalist

Pope Francis is trending. Today, Facebook announced he was the most-talked about topic on the social network in 2013 and Time Magazine named him a finalist for ‘Person of the Year.’ Last week he was declared the most searched topic on the Internet in Spanish.

El Papa Francisco, as he is lovingly referred to in Spanish, beat out chatter about the election, the royal baby and the term typhoon to top Facebook’s list. Facebook measures the number of posts globally in the year that “mentioned a specific topic and then ranked those topics based on the overall number of mentions.”

The pope made another iconic cultural list becoming a top ten finalist for Time’s ‘Person of the Year.’ Also on the list is another Latino, Republican Senator Ted Cruz. Other world leaders on the list include the controversial Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran and Barack Obama.

Pope Francis, 76, was elected by the Papal conclave this past March and is the first pope from Latin America and the first Jesuit. He is the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since his elevation he has been making news everyday for his humanity, gracious manner and simple life. The Pope said he chose his name after St. Francis of Assisi, explaining he wants the church to focus on the poor.